


Full homo, bruv.

by astrophilian



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: (only implied from Richie's side), Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Angst with a Happy Ending, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Established Relationship, Internalized Homophobia, Invalidated Feelings, M/M, Mike Hanlon Isn't Homeschooled, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, They just need to talk about it, You can see i'm awful at tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 20:00:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21604381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrophilian/pseuds/astrophilian
Summary: “Hey guys, is it gay to hold hands? Asking for a friend ⎯”Eddie had laughed, and so had their friends. It was just a joke, a typical Trashmouth joke.But Eddie’s heart was pinched, like someone with long nails had picked it up in disgust. Like it was dirty and shameful.ORRichie loves Eddie very much, but has a weird way of showing it in public. Eddie doesn't like it.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 182





	Full homo, bruv.

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [i'm not gay but...](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/538618) by Tori. 



> Big thanks to Tori on twitter for tweeting out the inspiration for this. ([Original tweet](https://twitter.com/irlreddie/status/1199761993655357440)).
> 
> I was very emotional when I started writing this and it turned a bit angsty, but it's a happy ending. It wasn't beta'd!
> 
> Enjoy!

Eddie and Richie had been seeing each other for a couple of months now. It had been great so far, the honeymoon phase they called it, and Eddie was sure he’d never been happier. So he didn’t quite understand why, every time they were together with the losers, he’d get this feeling.

It felt like something or someone was pinching his heart. Just, a tiny, sharp pain in the center of his chest. It began so subtle, so shy that he didn’t even notice.

The first time that happened, before he knew it was even happening, had been when he’d tangled Richie’s fingers with his as they walked with the rest of the Losers to the barrens. Richie looked at him and tightened his grip on Eddie’s hand as he moved it above his head. “Hey guys, is it gay to hold hands? Asking for a friend ⎯”

Eddie had laughed, and so had their friends. It was just a joke, a typical Trashmouth joke.

But Eddie’s heart was pinched, like someone with long nails had picked it up in disgust. Like it was dirty and shameful.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

The first time he  _ noticed _ was after he kissed Richie goodbye when the Losers dropped him off at home. They were going to continue riding their bikes to their home, and Eddie was the first one to make it home.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” He’d asked. Richie nodded. “Good, night then.” He kissed him, just a soft peck on the lips, and then turned to the rest of the guys to wave them goodbye.

“No homo, bro.”

Eddie frowned as he watched Richie wink at him, get on his bike and ride away. He’d felt it this time. He’d felt his heart ache. He’d felt how weird it was to hear Richie say that after a kiss. And then he pushed all those feelings aside and turned around to make his way into his house.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

“So, are you guys official?” Bev had asked Eddie one Saturday afternoon. They were enjoying the end of the summer, laying down on the cold stone atop the quarry lake. Eddie was spreading suncream on Bev’s already reddened skin, and her question felt like a pair of handcuffs, keeping him still for a moment. There was no way of getting away from it.

Eddie lets out a long and visibly confused. “Uh…,” before continuing to massage the cream into the redhead’s shoulders. “I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I mean, we haven’t asked each other, but we behave like it.”

“I don’t wanna sound rude, but you kinda don’t.”

“Well, it’s different when we’re alone.”

Bev thought in silence for a moment, before nodding and dropping the topic. “Alright then. Thanks for doing this for me, Eddie.”

The boy smiled over the pain that had just reappeared in that same spot of his heart. “I wouldn’t want you getting skin cancer, Bev. Don’t thank me.”

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Eddie was getting tired of his heart hurting. He wasn’t consciously aware of it, but his mind was done with it.

They had started dating June 5th, and they were several weeks into the school year now. It was October 13th. Over four months of them dating.

Eddie had had enough.

They were sitting on one of the outside tables of the cafeteria. Their next period was about to start, so they packed their bags and started moving inside the building.

Richie let his arm fall around Eddie’s shoulders as they walked to their respective classes. Stan was walking on the other side of Richie’s, and the two of them were talking about something Eddie wasn’t paying attention to.

Richie’s class appeared as they went around a corner, and so Richie pressed a kiss against Eddie’s forehead.

“That’s so gay.” A boy said as he passed by, a classmate, a guy Eddie had never talked to. Someone unimportant.

Richie’s cheeks turned red and chuckled. “I am not gay, I just like kissing Eddie from time to time.”

Eddie couldn’t see the faces of disbelief in the Loser’s faces. He couldn’t see how Bill, Bev and Ben deeply frowned; how Stan’s eyes opened so wide, like when your mom comes in the morning and wakes you up by opening up the curtains; and how Mike mouthed a soft  _ ‘what the fuck’ _ . 

He didn’t see that, but he felt that invisible hand again, pinching his heart. It had grown stronger, grown braver, grown defiant.  _ ‘See how far can you take it, Eds _ ’, it said, in a distorted voice,  _ ‘see how long you last. _ ’

One hundred and thirty days.

“Dude.” He sounded older to his own ears. The seriousness of his voice, the  _ pain _ , becoming evident in just one word. Richie looked down at his eyes and Eddie felt the shame he felt for being called out in public, for having so many pairs of eyes on him.

Eddie almost felt bad for him. Almost.

Instead, he turned away and continued walking to his class, leaving the rest of the Losers there.

If he’d walked a bit slower, he may have been able to hear Richie ask “ _ what did I do? _ ”

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Eddie hadn’t seen Richie in 33 hours, 27 minutes and 38, 39… 40 seconds. It was driving him insane.

He’d made sure to avoid him all day at school, and instead of joining in with the rest of the Losers after the last bell rang, he rushed out of the building and towards his house.

He’d tidied up his room, done his homework, had dinner and showered. Now, the clock was getting closer and closer to eleven at night, which was by all means, way past his bedtime. But there he laid, back against the mattress, head sinking into the pillow, eyes focused on the ceiling.

Eddie missed him. He’d go as far as to say he also missed the pinching hand. Anything that meant Richie would have been welcome right then, but he was alone in his room. Because he was a dumbass and got mad at jokes.

But they weren’t really  _ jokes _ , were they? He grumpily turned on his side, his arm grabbing onto the blankets and covering himself up to his ear. The wall seemed to creep up around him and cover him, protecting him of whatever was outside of the room. He usually liked that feeling, the security of his own bed, his own room, but tonight it felt suffocating.

A groan left Eddie’s throat as he kicked the sheets off him and moved around the room, putting some clothes on top of his pjs. His mother should have been asleep by now, but crossing the whole first floor and ground floor without getting caught didn’t seem possible, so once he was dressed (dressed, vb. referring to the action of putting on jeans and a coat over your pajama because you miss your boyfriend).

He slid the window up, made his way out and made sure to leave something underneath so it didn’t close all the way.

Getting off to the ground was easier now than it was when he first started doing it, years ago now. He knew where to step in order to not make any noise, where to grab, and how to land. He excelled at sneaking out.

Richie’s window was pitch black when he arrived at the house. By then, it must’ve been almost half past eleven, considering Eddie  _ walked _ there. Richie was probably asleep. Upset. Annoyed. Maybe angry?

_ ‘So are you,’ Eds _ . The voice reminded him, and he cringed at the nickname. It wasn’t Richie’s voice, it felt  _ wrong _ . ‘ _ He angered you so much you stomped away. _ ’ Eddie’s fists closed in his pockets. He was going to sort this out if it was the last thing he did.

Steady feet took him to the hedge underneath Richie’s window. Richie’s room was at the back of the house on the ground floor, and there was only a (beaten up) hedge between the ledge and the floor. Eddie peered over it, trying not to stumble and fall over it. There seemed to be a lump under the blankets, and the shorter boy tapped the glass to catch his attention.

No one moved inside.

Eddie frowned in frustration and tapped again, slightly harder.

“You’re not gonna wake up my pillow.” A voice said behind him, and Eddie almost slapped Richie as he turned around.

“What the fuck are you doing out here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“Well ⎯” Eddie mumbled. ‘ _ Where’s that confidence now, Eds? _ ’ He shook the voice away in short movements of his head.

“It’s good, dude. I was just smoking. My mom doesn’t like the smell.” Richie explained, a -recently squashed, still fuming- cigarette in hand. Eddie didn’t like the smell, either.

“We have to talk.” Richie started to visibly panic, and Eddie realised a little late what his choice of words had been. “No, not like that!” His hand took Richie’s. “I just have to tell you something.”

The tallest boy nodded, not daring to speak, and hurried them both inside through the window. It was warm and smelled like lavender and lemon (from the detergent and his mom’s cologne). Eddie felt like the protecting walls weren’t suffocating him there.

“What is it, Eds?” Richie asked, sitting down on his bed with his back against the headboard. Eddie stood awkwardly for half a second before he sat down in front of him, legs crossed, facing Richie.

“Are you happy?” He asked.

“Most of the time, I guess…”

“I mean with me.”

“What?”

“Are you happy in our relationship?”

“Of course!” Richie raised his voice slightly and instantly lowered it, afraid of waking his mom up. “What kind of a question is that, Eds?!”

“I am not.” Eddie’s gaze lowered and his cheeks started burning. A mix of blushing and tears rushing up. It wasn’t the time, though. “Not completely, not as much as I should be, anyway.”

Richie was silent for a long moment. Then, he leant forward and placed himself face to face with Eddie. “Why? What can I do?”

Eddie looked at Richie, everything about him. His eyes behind those thick eyes that made them twice as big; the freckles that were already becoming dimmer as the weather got darker; the tint of pink at the top of his cheeks and nose from the chilly night; the dark strands of hair framing his face, messy and tangled as always; the lips he’d been longing for years and finally were his to kiss.

“I love you, you know?” Eddie blurted out. He’d never said it before to anyone other than his mother, but it came out just as naturally with Richie ⎯ if not more.

Richie seemed to realise how it was the first time Eddie had said it and it took him aback for a second, before a soft smile formed on his lips. “I love you too, Spaghetti.”

“Then why do you say all those things when we’re out in public? They make me feel like shit.”

“What?”

“The jokes, Rich. The damn jokes.  _ ‘No homo _ ’; ‘ _ guys is it gay to… _ ’; ‘ _ I’m not gay, but…’ _ .” 

Richie looked like someone had dropped a bucket of ice cold water over him. “Is that what this is about?”

“Don’t you think that’s a good motive?”

“No! I didn’t mean that ⎯ I mean…” Richie looked down and moved back, giving himself space. “I mean… I have done it for so long, Eddie. Since we started going out. All summer! And… And I’ve been hurting you all this time.”

This was Richie, the Richie he knew. The Richie he fell for. The Richie that was too smart for his own good, unless it was regarding himself. 

Eddie reached out to grab his hand. “I know it wasn’t your intention, Richie. I didn’t even notice it at first, you know? But then ⎯ then I started thinking,  _ ‘well, maybe I’m not good enough for him’ _ ; and  _ ‘he’s probably just ashamed of making it public’ _ . And it started eating at me… pinching me.

“And then you said you weren’t gay for kissing me. Which, if you’re truly not and you’re bisexual that would be great, but… I’m not your experiment. If you didn’t know, if you wanted to make sure. Whatever your sexuality is… I’m not your free trial.

“I need to know whether we are a couple or not. And if we are, and you’re not ready to come out, then  _ tell me _ . Because I am out and proud, and I want to be proud of you, too. I want to be able to hold your hand in public without the fear of someone looking at us weird and you taking your hand away; or kiss you and laugh when the Losers make noises of disgust, instead of praying that you won’t stop kissing me.

“I’ve wanted this for so long, Richie. I’ve wanted to be your boyfriend for as long as I’ve known what boyfriends were. So this is it. No more heart pinching. No more fear.”

Richie’s eyes kept focused on him as if he was studying him just as intensely as Eddie had studied him a couple moments ago. Eddie felt self conscious about himself, which seldom happened when he was with Richie. But now he felt bare. He’d confessed, his secrets were out. He had been exposed by himself, and now he felt observed. Like he observed Stan dissect a frog in Bio, or how he observed the rest of his class in PE because his mom would  **_not_ ** let him run.

He hated it. The frog, his mom, Richie’s eyes on him. Made him feel anxious.  _ Dirty _ .

Just as he was about to burst, Richie opened his mouth. 

“I’m sorry I ever made you feel like I wasn’t serious about this. I am.”

Anyone else would have doubted him. Anyone else would have assumed Richie was just taking it all as a joke and that he didn’t really take whatever Eddie was saying seriously. Always the joker, always the clown. But Eddie Kaspbrak was not  _ anyone else _ .

He could see how scared Richie was that this was even happening, that he was upset. And it was endearing. Yes, Eddie was angry and hurt, but he also knew Richie’s intentions were never those. He knew Richie better than he knew himself. And maybe a calmer approach, without ultimatums would’ve had the same effect, but it was done now.

“I didn’t notice how that would be a big deal for you…” He continued. “And I should have. I can only imagine how invalidated you must’ve felt. I’m so fucking sorry.”

Eddie placed his hand on Richie’s cheek, softly caressing his skin with his thumb. He remembered when Richie’s skin was smooth and acne free before the hormones hit him, and he also remembered him at his worst. Now, his thumb could feel the scars and little marks it had left. Richie used to hate himself so much back then, Eddie hurt for him.

Of course, in those days they were only best friends. Platonic. And he hadn’t caressed his cheeks and kissed them. He hadn’t told him how handsome he was, back then. He could only help the way the rest of the losers did, by sharing his pain with their own acne, and in his personal case, giving him some of the  _ awesome _ cream his mom got for him. If it was Sonia approved, it would definitely work.

“It’s all good.” Eddie whispered.

“It’s not.”

“It is, I promise.” Eddie nodded, and moved forward slightly, just enough to brush their lips together. “I love you, dumbass.”

Richie chuckled, and suddenly his arms were around Eddie’s body, pulling him in. Eddie reciprocated, wrapping his own around Richie. 

“I love you, Eds. You’re not a free trial, you’re  **_it_ ** for me. I’ll prove it to you.”

Eddie felt himself smiling against his boyfriend’s neck. He closed his eyes and let himself enjoy the feeling. And he realised that the menacing hand, the aching heart, had gone away. There was no longer that feeling hovering over his head, that anticipation for pain. He knew Richie wouldn’t do it. And he thought, then, how lucky he was to love someone like this. With their ups and downs, with their quirks, their mistakes, their scars (physical and metaphorical), their bad jokes, their smoking habits. 

How big did his heart feel right that moment, as they embraced each other in the darkness of the night. Two teenagers in love, but somehow so sure that whatever they had was for good. 

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Richie waited for him outside the school building. He never did this because he was never  _ early _ . He wasn’t late, either, but just. Barely on time. So when Eddie saw him there, with a big ass smile plastered on his face, he blushed.

“Well, look who decided to show up.”

“Shut up, Richie.” He groaned, but he was smiling. Richie’s hand fell on his shoulders, and pushed him to his side to place a kiss on top of his head.

“How is my boyfriend this fine morning?”

“Sleep deprived, someone decided to hold me hostage last night and I couldn’t go home until past one in the morning.”

“Eds! Are you cheating on me?” He faked surprise, and Eddie just laughed.

“As if you could get rid of me, Trashmouth.”

When they got to their lockers, one on each side of the corridor, they saw the rest of the Losers already talking about their daily schedule. They said a quick hello, and when Richie banged the door closed and turned around, Stan was looking at him.

“What?”

“What are you doing here this early?”

“What do you mean?”

“You always get as the bell’s ringing.”

“Maybe I wanted to see my boyfriend before class.”

Stan, Bill, and even Bev, Mike and Ben who were a bit further back, turned their heads to Eddie. Eddie was still busy with his locker, but the sudden silence made him turn around.

“What the fuck?” Bev asked.

“What?” Eddie dared to ask.

“Boyfriends?”

He looked with panicked eyes at Richie and saw he was smiling. Beaming. Eddie smiled too.

“That’s the word we use, Bevvy dearest. You know, when you’re in a relationship with someone?”

“Took you fucking long enough!” Stan said, and then added. “I thought we were gonna have to take you to court or something, make it official the serious way.”

“No need, Stanley. Let us visit the judge on our own terms.” And if that meant Richie would propose, Eddie didn’t want to think about it. Instead, he shrugged with a smile on his face.

He liked this way more, Richie proclaiming their relationship like this. 

“I think th-they just became twice as a-a-annoying…” Bill said, a proud smile on his lips giving away the fake complain.

“Get used to it, Bill.” Eddie said with a slam on the locker door. He walked up to Richie, who instantly tangled their hands together. ‘ _ I’ll get used to this, too _ .’

**Author's Note:**

> And yeah they lived happily ever after. I was vague enough with the time period so you can imagine them whenever you want. I wanna believe they're 90s kids and that they're able to marry because the US passed the equal marriage law for all states while they were in HC/early uni.
> 
> Anyway! Thanks again to Tori and to you for reading!
> 
> If you enjoyed it please leave comments and kudos! ♥


End file.
